For our special report, we asked a variety of experts from the mobile industry, and some of their answers may surprise you.

One of the best answers comes from Matt Galligan, co-founder of SimpleGeo, a location services company: "In my opinion, the 'future of mobile' is the 'future of everything'."

It actually seems plausible that your phone will become the center of your life, technology-wise, at least.

In general, our experts seem to agree that your phone will be everywhere with you, and may eventually be smarter than you. Instead of figuring out the answers to your questions after you ask them, it may be able to figure out the questions and answers before you can think of them. It sounds cool.

Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint

"Wireless has been the most rapidly adopted technology in the history of the world, with most of the world's population now owning a cell phone. Phones will get 'smarter' and become multi-media devices with faster internal processors and network connection speeds, plus larger and sharper screens."

"The biggest change in devices will be 'beyond phones' in what we call 'connected devices' - from tablets to wirelessly-connected machines of all kinds, like medical monitors, cameras, smart meters, and vehicles. It's projected there will be over 2 billion of these connected devices worldwide by 2020."

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Matt Galligan, co-founder of SimpleGeo

SimpleGeo

"In my opinion, the 'future of mobile' is the 'future of everything'. Your mobile device will touch every part of your life: it will be your wallet, your identity, your car keys, house keys, communication, social life and far more. All of these technologies already exist, but they will become more pervasive and engrained in everyday society in just a few short years."

"The future of mobile will largely be defined by the small, creative entrepreneurs and companies that leverage the device capabilities in new and interesting ways. These companies have no existing business to put at risk and in so doing can experiment and explore in ways that the established players cannot. The mobile future of money, health, information gathering will come from brands that we have yet to discover (or create)."

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Veronica Belmont, host of Tekzilla and Qore

"I think the biggest (and most important) change coming to mobile technology is in mobile payment systems, like Square and its competitors. While I understand the concerns people have with linking their bank accounts with their phones (especially in the case of NFC payment systems) I think Americans will eventually come around to the convenience this technology offers. I look forward to the day when all I need to carry with me for a night out is my cell phone!"

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Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare

Dan Frommer, Business Insider

"For the past few years, we've thought as smartphones as a way to access the Internet while on the go. The next few years will be about thinking of the phone as a networked sensor. We carry our phones everywhere and they often know where we are, where we're going and where we've been. They have the potential to know where we're headed, who we're traveling with and what we may find interesting around the corner."

"The next few years of mobile will be very exciting. We'll see a lot less 'Hey phone, let me ask you a question' and a lot more 'Hello from your phone! I found something awesome nearby you should know about'."

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Sam Altman, co-founder of Loopt

Loc.ly

"Mobile is becoming the bridge between the virtual and real worlds. We can have better experiences in the real world by supplementing whatever we're doing with information from our phones in real-time."

"Communication. We forget this sometimes, but mobile phones are first and foremost communication devices. Connecting to people -- easily, in new ways, and all of the time -- will continue to play a very central role."

"Also, 5 years from now, I predict the general shape and UI of most phones will still be a lot like the current iPhone."

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Kevin Rose, co-founder of Milk Inc. and Digg

"Smart phones give us [as developers] access to a whole new world of data. Never before have we known where you are, what you're enjoying, how fast you're moving, or where you're headed. This is kicking off a huge wave of location driven applications."

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Alexa Andrzejewski, co-founder of Foodspotting

Foodspotting

"What I'm particularly interested in is this shift from search to discovery that is happening. Instead of telling the phone exactly what we are looking for ('Bob's Donuts'), you can now simply launch the device and see good things around you, see where your friends have been nearby and what they've been eating."

"Because we're increasingly leaving footprints of data everywhere we go -- what we like, where we go, what we eat, what we buy -- mobile devices are becoming more and more like "magic lenses" that reveal these footprints and make sense of it for us. It's augmented reality, but not in the gimmicky, through-the-camera-lens sense, but in the sense of revealing things about the world we wouldn't have known otherwise."

"I love being able to go to a restaurant, launch Foodspotting and see what my friends or Foodspotting team members recommended there in the past. Or to launch Foursquare and see 'ghost places' -- which I realize is unintentional, but it's interesting to see the markets, tech parties, and other events that USED to be in a place you're at!"

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David Temkin, VP of Mobile at AOL

"The present of mobile represents the triumph of ubiquitous computing. What we call 'smartphones' are only incidentally phones -- they're more accurately described as cloud-connected computers, available at the ready."

"The future will take ubiquitous computing much farther. As the cost of hardware goes down, bandwidth becomes more available, and cameras, batteries and other components get smaller, and lighter, we'll be inexorably pushed into a new landscape densely populated with devices and information."

"Sensors will be everywhere; everything will be recorded and searchable, in real-time. The idea of privacy will become a quaint idea embraced by older generations. Sheer convenience, low cost, and our insatiable need for more information, faster, will make things like billions of mosquito-sized wireless cameras seem reasonable, if not economically indispensable."

"The line between social networking and universal surveillance will grow ever blurrier. And it'll happen faster than expected. After all, who seriously thought smartphones would be a mainstream consumer product -- really, an addiction -- just five years ago?"

Peter Rojas, co-founder of Gdgt, co-founder of Engadget and Gizmodo

"I think the biggest change, and one that we're already starting to see take shape, is that globally the majority of internet usage will be done via a mobile device and for most people the mobile web will be their primary -- if not their only -- way of experiencing the internet. For a lot of business that'll mean designing for the mobile web first and for the regular web second, and there will be increasing numbers of sites, apps, and services that exist only for the mobile web."

"On the hardware side we're going to see a very wide spectrum of mobile devices and the dividing line between smartphones and tablets will get pretty blurry. Cloud-based services are going to make it easier and easier to own and use multiple devices, and so I don't think it's going to be smartphones vs. tablets vs. laptops, it's going to smartphones AND tablets AND laptops. It's just that we're going to use each in different ways and in different contexts."

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Lauren Leto, co-founder of Bnter and Texts From Last Night

"Mobile phones will be our credit card, keys to our house and car, our main identification badge. They'll be our baby monitor, time punch for work, reading devices. For better or worse, phones are becoming bits and chunks of every card in your wallet and gadget in your house. Don't be surprised if one day they can even toast your bread. They'll still probably drop calls, though."

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Nihal Mehta, CEO of LocalResponse and general partner at Eniac Ventures

"Since 2000, we've been saying the year of mobile is coming up next and it always has been. Now, in 2011, in India for example, half a billion consumers are using their cellphones daily (for more than voice). There are phones for approximately half of the world's population. People don't leave their phones more than 5 feet away from them at ANY point in the day. There is more access to the Internet on mobile devices than the PC, globally. The mobile device has become our communications hub, our diary, our entertainment portal, our primary source of media consumption, our wallet and our gateway to real-time information tailored to our needs. The revolution is now!"

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Cyriac Roeding, co-founder of Shopkick

"The future of online is offline. Tap on a mobile phone, and like magic a bridge springs up between the interactive world and the real world. The mobile phone is the only interactive medium you carry with you in the non-interactive offline world, so it lets you have the best of both worlds literally at your fingertips."

"If it's done right, the real world is suddenly full of awesomely relevant 'digital things' according to where you are and what you do, from social to shopping to information. Oh, yes, tap once again, and it's a personal digital ID card that starts your favorite TV shows when you come home, or quite literally opens doors for you. What's wild is that as futuristic as this vision seems, it's already becoming reality."

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Ted Morgan, co-founder of Skyhook Wireless

"We fundamentally believe that location will become an integral part of all mobile experiences and that location usage data will revolutionize our understanding of human behavior. This new knowledge will not only introduce entirely new avenues for marketing but also alter the physical landscape of our lives as delivery of outdoor advertising changes, traffic management is optimized, telecommuting is enhanced and social interactions are completely reinvented. While these transformations will take place over the course of 5-10 years, the building blocks are already being put into place."

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Rana June Sobhany, iPad DJ, author, and mobile entrepreneur

"The future of mobile is all about how gestural interfaces will permeate our every day lives. I think the iPhone was just the start, and now the iPad has really pushed the boundaries of our experiences with computing. In terms of making and performing music, this is the first time that we've had a widely deployed consumer technology that enables tangible interactions with music. We are witnessing a sea change and I'm so thrilled to see what's next for creative projects built on mobile platforms."

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Brian Wong, founder of Kiip

Kiip

"Mobile will become the convergence of anything that requires an external connection for us. Social, commerce, entertainment, and more. It becomes an extension of your mind -- and the ability to interact with the device without even looking at it will be the key focus of a lot of hardware innovations."

"Advertising will become a key part of actions that take part in the mobile context, whereby attention will be categorized in mobile as being different and purely moments-based. Until someone acts and shows intent, display may be meaningless."

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Peter Semmelhack, founder of Bug Labs

"The term 'mobile' will become an anachronism. Remember 'desktop computing'? All computing will be considered mobile."

"What we call mobile today will broaden to include just about anything that moves and is connected to a network -- not just humans -- anything with wheels and/or wings (cars, bikes, wheelchairs, UAVs), robots, dogs, your sneakers, etc etc. Opportunities to innovate in these spaces will explode."

"Forty years ago you got your software from giant companies (IBM, HP, Wang). Today you can get it from two guys in Helsinki (Angry Birds). The cost of innovating in software has gone to zero because of open source and the Internet."

"My big prediction is 10 years from now you'll be buying your mobile electronics from 'two guys in Helsinki' and not just from the giants (Apple, Samsung, etc.) because the growing movement in open hardware, bottom up innovation and mass customization will fundamentally change how hardware is designed, produced and distributed. Lots happening in this respect in NYC alone -- Shapeways, MakerBot, Bug Labs, NYCresistor, etc."

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Anthony Iacovone, founder of Augme

Augme

"Near Field Communication (NFC) will open the floodgates for profound changes in the way we use our mobile devices. While today there's a good deal of trial, error and confusion around mobile technology including apps, QR codes, image recognition, etc., NFC will soon dominate the way consumers secure coupons and deliver payments — our phones will become our wallets."

"And with more unified technology platforms in our mobile future, content, communications and commerce can all be streamlined. At Augme we envision a future in which a consumer who interacts with brands using a mobile device is immediately identified, segmented and delivered content that is personalized down to what they might need on their next trip to the grocery store."